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Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Is this the worst bottomless brunch in the country? Woman blasts £50-a-head breakfast restaurant for serving 'freezing food' on 'dirty plates' and 'failing to provide meal for a Coeliac'
A woman has slammed a Liverpool restaurant for serving 'the worst bottomless brunch ever', complaining of 'freezing' food, 'dirty plates', and the failure to provide a gluten-free meal. Katie G, took to TikTok to share her 'terrible' experience dining at Liberté, a rooftop restaurant based in Liverpool. She claimed she and her friends were treated 'rudely' by managers, who failed to apologise after a gluten-free meal they had ordered never arrived. Katie said she and a group of friends had recently booked to visit the rooftop restaurant, each paying £50 each to enjoy limitless boozy cocktails. But the group but were left horrified after the non gluten-free options arrived 'freezing' on 'dirty' plates, describing the response from staff as 'appalling'. The Liverpool-based venue offers 90-minute bottomless brunch bookings that include bottomless cocktails and platters of tapas style dishes. However, once the group were seated and the drinks started flowing, Jess's gluten-free meal failed to turn up and, despite asking several members of staff for it, never arrived. Sharing the story on social media, Katie has since amassed more than three million views on the video, with thousands of outraged viewers taking to the comments to express their views, including one who called it 'discrimination' against people with Coeliac disease. Liberté did not respond to request for comment. Detailing the ordeal in a TikTok video, Katie said: 'I had quite literally the worst bottomless brunch ever', adding that she was 'not usually one to complain about things', but had been left no choice after the 'terrible' experience. 'I've worked in hospitality so I know how things can go wrong,' she said. Upon arriving at the venue, the group were asked by the server if anyone had an allergies which they needed to take into account, to which they explained that their friend, Jess, was Coeliac. The server then informed the kitchen of the request and 'it seemed like everything was fine'. But things quickly went pear-shaped when the first dishes of non gluten-free sharing platter arrived on 'dirty plates', which the group asked to exchange for clean ones. However, when the served returned with new plates, they were also 'dirty'. Katie said the food that did arrive was 'freezing cold'. 'It wasn't even a bit cold, it was freezing. It had obviously been sat in the back for ages before they served,' she said. Katie said she initially hesitated to complain about the cold food and dirty plates, saying she hadn't wanted to have to wait even longer for their meals to arrive. As the group tucked into their food, Jess, who had ordered the gluten-free, waited for a further half an hour before nudging the server to ask where her food was. Meanwhile, the rest of the restaurant were in full party mode, as saxophonists and musicians began performing, encouraging the customers to get up and dance. Katie and her friends asked an additional two servers when the gluten-free main would be arriving and were told it would be 'one minute' on each occasion. But as the 90-minute brunch slot came to a close, it was clear the meal wasn't leaving the kitchen. 'They were bringing out plastic cups for us to put our alcohol in and Jess still doesn't have her food,' Katie explained. 'At this point we were so angry because we weren't going to get up and start enjoying ourselves and leave Jess at the table waiting for her food because three members of staff had told us food was on its way. 'The whole point of a bottomless brunch is that you have food,' she fumed, adding that Jess had even decided to stop drinking in the fears that she would get 'absolutely paralytic' on an empty stomach. Having not received one of the meals, the group requested a refund from one of the servers, but were only handed a £15 in cash as compensation for the missing food. 'We said we couldn't accept that and the manager eventually comes over but he's putting up a fight, he's saying that's all we can give you. 'He had such an attitude - he was so rude and there was no apology.' But the steadfast group made it 'clear we were not going to move' until they were issued a refund. Eventually, the manager arrived at their table with £50 in cash. She claimed he then 'chucked the money and just walked away'. They continued to wait at their table for the meal to arrive, but were swiftly informed the gluten-free option had been 'chucked out' since they had asked for a refund. 'It felt like Jess was being punished for asking for a refund for food that she didn't get. It was absurd.' Katie said the group were 'not satisfied with the service or that apology'. Sharing the story on social media, Katie has since amassed more than 3 million views on the video, with thousands of outraged viewers taking to the comments to express their views, including one who called it 'discrimination' against people with Coeliac disease 'An apology goes a long way but we didn't get any of it.' Even after speaking to another manager, who Katie described as 'rude and arrogant', they were still dissatisfied with the response and claimed he was 'not apologetic at all'. 'When we were telling him all the things that had gone wrong he was just smirking, I couldn't believe it,' she said. Eventually, after speaking to a subsequent two managers, the group managed to attain a refund for each of them. 'But it was such hard work, they didn't was to refund any of us. It was just appalling,' she complained. 'If you're gluten-free, you're not being fed,' she said. Since uploading the video two days ago, Liberté have turned the comments off on their TikTok account. The restaurant, which claims to offer 'breathtaking views of the waterfront and panoramic cityscape of Liverpool', has a rating of just 3.3 stars on Google reviews. Reviews on TripAdvisor paint a similar picture with several complaining of finding 'hairs' in 'cheap food', with several other reviews cite having had their allergen requirements 'ignored'. Writing on the review website, one patron called it the 'worst brunch I have ever been to'. They described 'broken furniture', male customers seated 'with their tops off' and said they were served 'food poisoning on a plate'. Attaching a picture, the customer shared a glimpse of the cuisine, showing a pale looking slice of chicken on white bread. 'None of us wanted to eat it due to the way it looked and not knowing what it was,' they wrote, adding that the portion sizes were 'appalling'. Another referred to their experience at the venue as a 'scam', urging others to avoid. Their review read: 'Do not go here they reheat food from others table and serve, hair in the food, cheap food quality and drinks, the staff do not care and will quite literally walk away anytime you show dissatisfaction of food or service.' A third reviewer wrote: 'Dirty cutlery, poor service, managers were incredibly rude, not very good when it comes to allergies as my coworkers food was contaminated.' A fourth detailed other food related concerns, describing 'undercooked' cauliflower, prawns and 'soggy' chips. Meanwhile, countless diners urged potential patrons to 'avoid like the plague' with complaints ranging from 'rude staff' to accusations of 'contamination'. Commenters of Katie's video were quick to express their views of the establishment, with one accusing it of 'discrimination' against people with Coeliac disease. 'This is actually discrimination. Coeliac disease is a protected characteristic under The Equality Act. I'd go to the Local Authority Trading Standards to be honest,' one viewer wrote. 'They've had the audacity to turn off their comments liberty Liverpool do better,' another wrote. 'I actually used to work there and pretty much everyone who books it has a terrible experience... you only have to read the trip advisor reviews. It's notorious for terrible service and food. I worked on reception and the amount of weekly complaints were unbelievable!'
New York Times
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Restaurant Critic Confidential
Consider the food critic's memoir. An author inevitably faces the threat of proportional imbalance: a glut of one (the tantalizing range of delicacies eaten) and want of the other (the nonprofessional life lived). And in this age of publicly documenting one's every bite, it's easier than ever to forget that to simply have dined, no matter how extravagantly, is not enough to make one interesting, or a story worth telling. Fortunately, the life of Beshaleba River Puffin Rodell has been as unusual as her name. In fact, as she relays in the author's note that opens 'Hunger Like a Thirst,' a high school boyfriend believed she'd 'made up her entire life story,' starting with her elaborate moniker. Born in Australia on a farm called Narnia, she is the daughter of hippies. Her father, 'a man of many lives and vocations,' was in his religious scholar phase, whence Beshaleba, an amalgamation of two Bible names, cometh. Rodell's mother returned to her native United States, with her children and new husband, when Besha was 14. Within the first 20-plus years of her life, she had bounced back and forth repeatedly between the two continents and, within the U.S., between multiple states. ''I'm not from here' is at the core of who I am,' she writes. It's also at the core of her work as a restaurant critic, and what, she convincingly argues, distinguishes her writing from that of many contemporaries. She has the distanced perspective of a foreigner, but also lacks the privilege of her counterparts, who are often male and frequently moneyed. 'For better or for worse, this is the life that I have,' she writes. 'The one in which a lady who can't pay her utility bills can nonetheless go eat a big steak and drink martinis.' This, she believes, is her advantage: 'Dining out was never something I took for granted.' It started back in Narnia on the ninth birthday of her childhood best friend, who invited Rodell to tag along at a celebratory dinner at the town's fanciest restaurant. Rodell was struck, not by the food, but by 'the mesmerizing, intense luxury of it all.' From then on, despite or perhaps because of the financial stress that remains a constant in her life, she became committed to chasing that particular brand of enchantment, 'the specific opulence of a very good restaurant. I never connected this longing to the goal of attaining wealth; in fact, it was the pantomiming that appealed.' To become a writer who gets poorly compensated to dine at those very good restaurants required working multiple jobs, including, in her early days, at restaurants, while simultaneously taking on unpaid labor as an intern and attending classes. Things didn't get much easier once Rodell became a full-time critic and she achieved the milestones associated with industry success. She took over for Atlanta's most-read restaurant reviewer, then for the Pulitzer-winning Jonathan Gold at L.A. Weekly. She was nominated for multiple James Beard Awards and won one for an article on the legacy of the 40-ounce bottle of malt liquor. After moving back to Australia with her husband and son, she was hired to review restaurants for The New York Times's Australia bureau, before becoming the global dining critic for both Food & Wine and Travel & Leisure. Juxtaposed against the jet-setting and meals taken at the world's most rarefied restaurants is her 'real' life, the one where she can barely make rent or afford groceries. It turns out her outsider status has also left her well positioned to excavate the history of restaurant criticism and the role of those who have practiced it. She relays this with remarkable clarity and explains how it's shaped her own work. (To illustrate how she's put her own philosophy into practice, she includes examples of her writing.) It's this analysis that renders Rodell's book an essential read for anyone who's interested in cultural criticism. Packing all of the above into one book is a tall order, and if Rodell's has a flaw, it's in its structure. The moving parts can seem disjointed and, although the intention behind the structure is a meaningful one, the execution feels forced. As she explains in her epilogue, she used the table of contents from Anthony Bourdain's 'Kitchen Confidential' as inspiration for her own. Titled 'Tony,' the section is dedicated to him. But, however genuine the sentiment, to end on a man whose shadow looms so large detracts from her own story. (If anything, Rodell's approach feels more aligned with the work of the Gen X feminist Liz Phair, whose lyric the book's title borrows.) It certainly shouldn't deter anyone from reading it. Rodell's memoir is a singular accomplishment. And if this publication were to hire her as a dining critic in New York, there would be no complaints from this reader.
Yahoo
11-05-2025
- Yahoo
Alexandros restaurant Carlisle: The perfect dress rehearsal for my big Greek wedding
'So You want to do a restaurant review whilst fitting into a suit for my sister's wedding?' asked my puzzled wife setting up the satnav for Alexandros on Warwick Road, Carlisle. Well what do you do when you are flying 2,500 miles to Heraklion, Crete, to your English sister-in-law's traditional Greek wedding, you are supposed to be giving her away - but you are marginally overweight? Well you go to a Greek restaurant, of course, in search of inspiration. 'It's a dress rehearsal' I explained disarmingly, 'I am killing two birds with one stone (literally, being 14Ibs over). You know like Daedalus in Greek Mythology?!' The logic - good Greek work (This write-up is riddled with Greek words). First you put on weight by eating a fabulous meal and then guilt-ridden with the memory of wonderful food burn off the calories. Call it reverse psychology. Call it buy now, pay later. Recent crash dieting has included speed walking up Wainwrights with rucksacks containing flasks of black coffee (harsh); daytime fasting (miserable); and attempting burpees (humiliating) I needed an escape. The greatest form of marketing is word of mouth and I have only heard encouraging things about Alexandros like an enticing Shangri-La willing me over the threshold. This fabled Greek restaurant has been long overdue on my Cumbrian bucket list which has seen me scramble Catbells at dusk, paddleboard on Loweswater and drink a cold beer in Keswick's Dog & Gun. Alexandros Carlisle (Image: Newsquest) It is 5.30pm on the Saturday before Easter and Alexandros is already looking busy before we are seated. We meet the charming owners, husband and wife team and Aris and Sarah Pathanoglous They are celebrating the 25th anniversary of the restaurant in Carlisle. Their family business. Alexandros is elegantly decorated in Grecian trimmings and eye-catching paintings of Greece including the great man himself Alexander The Great. It is a very relaxed setting. Sparkling water is proffered. Menus scrutinised. Husband and wife team Sarah and Aris (Image: Newsquest) Like a time capsule that is set in Cumbria but takes you on a journey, the restaurant is rolling back the years. French novelist Marcel Proust said that food has the restorative power of nostalgia. A smell or taste of food can transport you back in time. Dipping that gorgeous Greek bread into Tzatziki and the clock rewinds to the summer of 1996. I am back in Ioannina, Northern Greece, younger, thinner and working as a TEFL teacher. I am eating Greek salad by Preveza with a pint of Amstel and reading John Fowles The Magus. The famous Greek Drachma with Alexander The Great (Image: Newsquest) It is searingly hot. There was no European Union. No Euro notes. You could flip a 100-drachma coin and it could land heads or tails on the famous profile of Alexandros. The Greek Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou and his much younger air hostess wife 'Mimi' is a big talking point. Tension is mounting between Turkey and Greece over a disputed island called Imia. Hilary Clinton is in Athens to collect the Olympic Torch for Atlanta 1996. Topping the charts in the bars of my favourite coastal resort of Parga are Spaceman by Babylon Zoo and Fool's Garden Lemon Tree. It seems appropriate as Northern Greece is the fruit basket. Taxi drivers don't use seat belts as they speed through the streets with Bouzouki music playing on the radio. Crete (Image: Newsquest) Greece was all about turning up the volume on the senses, the aroma of orange trees and olive groves. The taste of baked aubergine and garlic in a Taverna, the salty sweet smell of the Ionian sea. Sipping (Ellinikos kafes) Greek coffee, twiddling Kombo Loi (beads). Greeks I often found were consummate people watchers. Looking on with wry amusement as North Europeans busy themselves trying to pack a lifetime of sunshine and relaxation into a fortnight. A mulishly stubborn raised eyelids or a sardonic shrug of the shoulder speak volumes. For the Greeks there is nothing new under the sun. How to pack the promise of adventure onto a plate? The food we ordered was exquisite. Greek salad - crisp, creamy with sharp feta and a subtle drizzle of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Moussaka made from a traditional recipe. Tyrokafteri, Spicy Feta, Melitzanosalata, aubergine dip, the starter is a mind-boggling trinity of delectable flavours washed by down by a delicate white wine, Makedonikos, Tsantali from Halkidi. A Dionysian feast of aromas, tastes and textures that ooze that Mediterranean allure of sun-kissed isles. It conjures excitement and anticipation as the family talk is all about the forthcoming wedding. This is the first time the English and Greek families have met formally. Good manners and cultural etiquette will be meticulously observed. First impressions last. Tread carefully. Cretans are some of the most welcoming, hospitable people in the world but they don't suffer fools. Their fearsome partisan spirit was best depicted in WWII films Guns of Navarone with Gregory Peck and Ill Met by Moonlight starring Dirk Bogarde. Eating here reminds me of the past and the future. Traditional food with a modern outlook. Stunned by this spellbinding culinary masterpiece there was temptation to burst onto Warwick Road and proclaim 'Eureka!'. To avoid a few disconcerted looks and possibly arrest I just sat back and savoured that rare refined satisfaction you have when you've truly enjoyed a splendid meal. Greek food elevated par excellence. A full house of clean plates. 'Best food ever' proclaims my McDonald's mad 12-year-old who has cleaned a plate of Paidakia lamb chops. Delicious Moussaka (Image: Newsquest) For those craving 'encore' there is an adjoining deli to take a few delicacies back home. Racks of wines and olive oils. For those sweet toothed among you - Baklava. We leave this far flung Grecian restaurant in Carlisle to the sounds of clinking wine glasses, exuberant chatter and Aris Pathanoglous smiling standing with a clipboard like a Maestro composer. Happy Place, Happy faces. The body language all looks positive. This restaurant is a triumph. It could sit comfortably in Ermou Street, Athens, Covent Garden, London, Trattoria Vecchia, Rome and hold its own. But it's not. It's on Warwick Road, Carlisle, where it has conquered the city like Alexander The Great. A Herculean champion of dining, inspiration, hard work, impeccable service, and philosophy. The perfect fusion of tantalising authentic Greek food provenanced in Cumbria. So I say 'Yamas!' to Alexandros - Thank you for a sumptuous gastronomic tour down memory lane. The perfect dress rehearsal for my fat(ish) Greek Wedding. Now for a few Wainwrights and that diminutive suit… For more information about Alexandros click here ere Suit option for Crete (Image: Newsquest)
